Rand Paul: GOP Focus on Voter ID 'Offending People'

“Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing,” Paul toldThe New York Times in an interview on Friday. “I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.”

Paul, a potential 2016 candidate who would have a strong organization and support in Iowa and New Hampshire and could conceivably win both states, is trying to convince Republican establishment financiers that he could win in a general election. He has gone to historically black colleges, including Howard University, and campuses like Berkeley, asserting that the GOP needs to look more like America. He has also said that mostly white people attend events for GOP candidates.

Calling for sentencing reform, Paul has told white audiences that their kids are not incarcerated as much for smoking marijuana because they have better lawyers than those in the inner cities.

“Your kids and grandkids aren’t perfect either,” Paul said at a recent New Hampshire Freedom Summit.

He has even softened his stance on immigration, saying he favors legislation in which all the country’s illegal immigrants can get work visas.

But just as Hispanics slammed Paul for being “offensive,” even after he took a more liberal approach to immigration in favor of amnesty, black leaders gave him no credit for his softer stance on voter ID laws.

“Get real, Senator,” a black member of the Tennessee General Assembly told the Times. “To come here, to Memphis of all places, and espouse the principles and ‘goodness’ of today’s Republican Party, excuse me if I’m not buying it.”